Claire had been afraid. The strange words that came from her mother’s mouth frightened her, however softly they were spoken, and the flickering candles cast unfamiliar shadows.
Claire had avoided the room ever since.
But she couldn’t avoid it now, and she rapped softly on the door, turning the knob and pushing the door open.
Her mother was there, in the same position Claire had found her all those years ago, kneeling in front of the tea table that served as an altar. This time she was in her regular clothes. The altar was alight with purple candles that meant her mother was either working a spirituality rite or trying to channel her power more effectively. Two sticks of incense burned on either side of a Bible, their smoke rising into the air in abstract swirls.
Her mother didn’t look up or acknowledge her daughter’s presence in any way. Claire waited a few seconds before she finally gave up and started talking.
“Mom, I—”
“You know I won’t speak to you until you come in properly, Claire.” Her mother didn’t look away from the altar. Her hair, still long and black as a raven’s wing, tumbled down over one of her shoulders. “Besides, aren’t you supposed to be working the counter?”
Claire stepped into the room, but just barely. “I was, but—”
Now her mother looked over at her. “Then what are you doing up here? You know you’re not supposed to leave the store unattended.”
Claire crossed the room, her throat closing against the heavy scent of amber. She held out the piece of paper with the list of ingredients the woman had ordered.
Her mother took it, her gray eyes scanning the first page.
“These are all basic ingredients, Claire.” She turned it over. “Surely you know how to . . .” Her voice trailed off. She shook her head, her face two shades paler than it had been when Claire had entered the room. “Where did you get this?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Claire said. “A woman just came in. She gave me this order to fill.”
Her mother rose to her feet, pacing to the fireplace. “Which client was it?”
“That’s the thing,” Claire said. “I’ve never seen her before.”
Her mother turned to face her. “Then how did she get in?”
“With a key,” Claire said simply.
“Are you sure the door was latched? That it was locked when she came in?”
Claire sighed. She didn’t blame her mother for doubting her. She wasn’t exactly attentive on the job. But still.
“Yes, Miss Julie was the last person to place an order, and the door locked behind her, just like always.”
“Did this woman give you a name?”
No, Claire almost said, but she knew mine.
She didn’t say it though. The woman had probably been told about the Kincaids by whoever referred her to the store.
Claire shook her head. “And I didn’t ask. You’ve always told me not to. That if they have a key, I fill the orders, and that’s it.”
Her mother consulted the list again before looking up to meet Claire’s eyes. “But this is . . . this is impossible.”
She was still standing there, a look of shock on her face, when the phone rang.
“I’ll get it.” Claire left the room and picked up the phone that sat on a table in the hall. “Kincaid residence, Claire speaking.”
“Hello, Claire.” She immediately recognized the voice on the other end of the line. “May I speak to your mother or father, please? It’s urgent.”
“One moment.” Claire covered the mouthpiece and went back to the ritual room, holding out the phone to her mother. “It’s Aunt Estelle,” she said quietly. “She says it’s urgent.”
Estelle Toussaint wasn’t a blood relative to the Kincaids, but all the women in the Guild were Claire’s “aunts,” just as her mother was “Aunt Pilar” to the other Guild members’ children.
Pilar smoothed her skirt, as though the caller could see her through the phone. “Hello, Estelle.” Her mother paused, turning her back on Claire. “Well, I . . . When?” Another long pause. “Today?”
She didn’t say anything else for a couple of minutes. Claire was beginning to wonder if her mother was still on the phone when she murmured a few quiet words into the mouthpiece. Then she turned around, avoiding Claire’s eyes as she finished the call.
“Yes, I understand. We’ll see you then.” She hung up the phone, staring at it like it was something she’d never seen before.
“Mom?” Claire said. “What’s going on?”
Her mother looked up like she’d just realized Claire was still there. “We weren’t the only ones who received a troubling order today.”
“What do you mean?” Claire asked.
But her mother was already rushing from the room. “An emergency meeting has been called. Be ready to leave at six.”
TWO
Unlike the other kids in the Guild, Claire had never wanted to be invited to a meeting of its leadership. It was tradition for the firstborns to be brought into the fold sometime after their eighteenth birthday, but since Claire wasn’t eighteen until April, she’d hoped to put them off long enough to escape to college.
But now there was no avoiding it. An alarm had been sounded that echoed through the Guild, and a few hours later, Claire was in the backseat of their Lexus as her dad drove toward the Toussaint house, her mother silent and tense in the front seat beside him.
Claire was looking out the window, wishing she hadn’t been the one working when the woman placed her order, when her phone vibrated in her pocket.
She pulled it out, fully expecting to see a text from her best friend, Sasha.
WHAT’S GOING ON?
Sasha always wanted to know what was going on inside the Guild, probably because her parents never told her anything. Christopher and Pauline Drummond wanted their daughter to focus on the craft, not the politics of the organization that supplied it. That would come with time, they told her. When she fully understood the importance of her heritage.
NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS, Claire typed. ON WAY TO GUILD MEETING.
Sasha’s response came less than a minute later: ????!!!!
SOMEONE PLACED AN ORDER FOR AN ITEM ON THE BLACKLIST. I WAS WORKING THE COUNTER WHEN IT CAME IN.
WHAT WAS IT?????
Claire hesitated, wondering if she could get in trouble for telling Sasha. She started typing a second later.
BLACK PANTHER PLASMA. WILL GIVE YOU DETAILS LATER.
Claire put away her phone and looked out the window as they entered the Garden District. Her eyes swept upward to the great oaks that rose above them on either side, practically meeting in the center of the street.
She loved the Garden District. With its majestic old houses, massive trees, and old-fashioned streetcars, it was a throwback to a gentler time. That the Toussaints, the most powerful family in an underground organization devoted to the craft of voodoo, lived in one of the mansions on First Street was an irony few would appreciate.
“I hope Estelle doesn’t blame us for this,” Claire’s mother was saying from the front seat.
“Why on earth would she blame us?” Claire could almost see her dad rolling his eyes. “We weren’t the only ones who got an order.”
“Yes, but we were one of only three,” Claire’s mother said. “And you can bet they’ll find a way to make it our fault.”
It was an old argument. Claire’s dad, Noel, was an optimist when it came to human nature, choosing to believe that every slight was a misunderstanding and every catastrophe the result of a simple mistake.